BW 105: The Power of Journaling and Rebuilding a Life After Loss - Shawn Dinneen’s Story

[TRANSCRIPT BELOW]

Shawn Dinneen, a beacon of resilience and positivity. In this episode, Shawn shares her transformative journey through grief after the loss of her fiancé, John, in 2022. This episode is packed with inspiration, practical advice, and hope for anyone navigating the complexities of loss.

 

**Highlights:**

 

- **Event Announcement:** Emily announces a week-long back-to-school bash for widows starting on August 19th. There will be live events to help you move forward through grief.

 

- **Meet Shawn Dinneen:** Shawn shares her personal story of loss and the steps she took towards healing, including joining support groups and starting her own business, Heartstrings Journals. Learn about the powerful impact journaling has had on her journey.

 

- **Personal Transformation:** Shawn opens up about how her fiancé's death profoundly changed her perspective on life. She talks about adopting a more outgoing, spontaneous approach to life, inspired by her late fiancé.

 

- **Finding Hope and Healing:** Emily and Shawn discuss the importance of grief support groups, therapy, and journaling in finding a path to healing. Shawn emphasizes that grief and joy can coexist and shares tangible steps she took to build a supportive community.

 

- **Creating Heartstrings Journals:** Discover the inspiration behind Shawn's business and how her journals are designed to help others navigate their own grief journeys. From serious grief journals to lighthearted, fun ones, there's something for everyone.

 

- **Embracing a Positive Mindset:** Shawn shares strategies for maintaining a positive outlook and overcoming judgment, highlighting the importance of living a life that's true to oneself despite societal expectations.

 

**Where to Find Shawn:**

- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heart_strings_journals

- Amazon: Search for 'Heartstrings Journals' or 'Shawn Dinneen'

 

Instagram: @Heart_StringsJournals

TikTok: HeartStringsJournals 

Facebook: HeartStrings Journals

Or at linktr.ee/HeartStringsJournals

 

 

 

00:00 Introduction and Upcoming Event Announcement

01:34 Meet Shawn: A Journey of Loss and Healing

03:02 Shawn's Personal Transformation

09:12 The Power of Journaling

14:17 Building a Support System

17:51 Creating Heartstrings Journals

21:12 Embracing Positivity and Overcoming Judgment

24:36 Conclusion and Where to Find Shawn

25:38 Brave Widow Membership Community

 

Watch the episode here: https://youtu.be/fMrgS7mnJ7I

 

 

[00:00:00] Emily: Episode number 105 of the Brave Widows show, guys. Listen, I know by the time you hear this, it's the middle of July, you're thinking about vacation, you're thinking about enjoying your summer, you're thinking about the heat waves that may be coming through your area, but in August, I am going to be hosting a week long back to school bash for widows.

Whaaaaat? Now I know what you're thinking, widows don't normally go back to school, but we are going back to school and we are going to kick it off on August 19th with a full live event, webinar, workshop, the works. And every day that week I'm going to have a different live event where I answer your toughest questions.

I talk about. How you can discover your exact next steps to move forward through grief.

I'm going to share the sneaky signs that grief may be sabotaging your ability to move forward. And so much more. . If you're not already part of the Brave Widow community, if you're not already one of my coaching clients, then go sign up today to be on the email list so that you can join me the week of August 19th for a free public week long back to school bash for widows.

If you want to join the email list, go to bravewidow.com/free

Just trust me on this. This is a week you do not want to miss.

All right. Let me introduce Shawn. Shawn graduated with a bachelor's in psychology from the university of Connecticut in 2014 and has since gained over a decade of experience in the field of human resources. In her free time, she loves to explore, whether that be on a solo travel adventure, trying out a new local coffee shop or road tripping to discover new thrift shops.

Following the life altering event of losing her fiance in 2022, Shawn had no choice but to set out on an unexpected new path of self-discovery and healing. Through her struggles with grief, Shawn found journaling as a powerful healing outlet, which became the inspiration for her business, heartstrings journals. Shawn's mission extends beyond Heartstrings Journals as she uses social media to foster a platform of support and understanding. She believes in the power of maintaining a positive mindset and the importance of finding companionship in others with shared experiences. Shawn encourages embracing the mentality that grief and joy can coexist in the wake of tragedy, and she invites you to follow her journey on social media where she shares her personal experiences.

Insights, and the uplifting message that we can lean on one another to heal together. No one has to face their grief alone. You can find Shawn at Instagram at heart underscore strings journals.

Shawn welcome to the show and thank you for coming.

[00:02:59] Shawn: Yes, thank you so much for having me.

Shawn's Personal Journey with Grief
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[00:03:02] Shawn: So to start out, tell a little, tell you guys a little bit about myself.

I'm Shawn I'm 33 years old and I lost my fiance, John, in August of 2022 to an overdose. And I think there's a million different parts of my story that I could talk about. But usually the overdose is not one of them. I don't think that that should be his whole story. It was just something that happened to him and what ended up taking him away.

But if you knew him, anyone that did know him, he was everyone's best friend. No one ever had anything but good things to say to him.

I think sometimes when people think of someone that has addiction issues or that has passed an overdose, like you conjure up these ideas of like they're that homeless person on the street or at the end of the exit asking for money or someone that is lazy and sits on the couch and doesn't have a job.

And he was frankly, none of those things. He was a manager at his job. We bought a house together. We were a manager. Planning to get married. And so this all just happened in very quickly amount of time and that's what took him away, but the way that he lived his life and I mean, I was going to marry him.

I was in love with him. Obviously he was a great person and a lot of his great personality traits, I think now have rubbed off on me and his loss has changed my entire life and my entire perspective of how I live my life. I used to be a pretty introverted person, shy. I wouldn't just necessarily go out, do things by myself or walk up to people.

He was the exact opposite. He would be talking to the person next to him in the grocery line, chatting with the person at the coffee shop. He just made friends wherever he went and was so outgoing and had this like spirit and aura about him. And he used to think I was silly because he would make fun of me all the time.

Like I would go to the grocery store at a Walmart or something, and I would get so overwhelmed and frustrated. By all the other people there and like being in my way or standing in front of what I was going to look at, and he would just be like, they're just shopping to like, why is this bothering you so much.

And again, that's just like how I try to live my life now is, I'm now the person that I go to the coffee shop and I'm talking to the cashier and I go and do a bunch of stuff by myself now which. As crazy as myself to think of my previous self and my new self. I actually just got back from Portugal.

I went on a solo travel trip with 12 other girls that I had never met. So it's just been a whirlwind, honestly. And I credit a lot of it to him because he just lived his life like no one's opinion mattered. And I was completely opposite. I was always so concerned about what everyone's opinions were.

And now it's more like. The worst thing possible has happened to me. If someone thinks what I'm doing is silly or whatever, it doesn't impact me anymore. The way that it did before. I try to live it like he did where everyone's just a person and they're not scary. They're not someone to be afraid of, talk to them, find out about them.

And so it's, it's just changed my life. Obviously in the sad way that I lost him, I'm missing him. And I had this hole in my heart, but also, That I live a completely different path now than I ever would have before.

[00:06:27] Emily: Wow. So, I know people will be listening to your story and thinking that, it's been, what, almost two years now since he died.

[00:06:36] Shawn: Which seems crazy.

[00:06:38] Emily: Yes.

[00:06:39] Shawn: It seems like yesterday and it also seems like ten years ago at the same time. I don't know if that makes sense to you, but Yeah, absolutely, it does.

[00:06:49] Emily: And I know that there will be people that are thinking, you know, they're earlier in the stages where they're thinking there is no hope again, there is no joy again.

Finding Support and Healing
---

[00:06:58] Emily: Walk us through maybe your journey of having lost your fiancé at a young age, very early 30s. to just the devastation we know that comes with that loss. And now you have so much confidence in who you are again, that you can even go on a solo trip with other people you've never met before to another country you may not have been to before.

That's an incredible change in two years. Walk us through how that happened.

[00:07:28] Shawn: Yeah. So I just credit it to putting in the work. I immediately started putting in the work. The second that he passed away, I was posting on social media. Does anyone know any grief counselors or therapists that they recommended?

I knew that I needed support. I just didn't know what that support looked like. Luckily at the funeral home, there was a brochure that had a group for young widows. So I immediately enrolled myself into that and started to going to that, which was scary because I didn't know what that was going to look like.

I had no plans of being in a young widows group. I had never been to any kind of support group. So just stepping foot in there was terrifying. But also it was the one of the best things that I did for myself because no one around me had ever experienced the kind of loss that I had. They maybe lost a grandparent or a friend or a pet and it just wasn't the same.

So being in a room full of people that really understood and got it was so important and so impactful. And I've tapered off from going to that as much. I used to go every other week, which is when the meetings were. And it's I've made my way out of it, which I think is a natural progression.

But I was dependent on those groups at first. And I could feel it like, In that week in between where there was no group I could feel everything like bubbling up and I was, I would just be like I can't wait to go to my group because it would just be like that breath of releasing everything out of you and you could have more space for it to build back up again.

That and I just. Kept finding different outlets.

The Power of Journaling
---

[00:09:12] Shawn: So journaling was an outlet that I found. I started my company heartstrings journals from my own journaling practice. It was recommended to me by a grief counselor. And again, I was never a journaler. To me, journaling was like babysitters club writing in their diary, dear diary, today, my boyfriend looked at me or whatever.

You know, I didn't know how to do it. So I just did it in a way that made sense to me and that there was two different ways. So I would write letters. And that's also a way that I coped with going to the cemetery because I never experienced a loss like this. I was never frequenting a cemetery before, so I didn't know what to do there either.

And I would bring my journal and I still keep a journal in my glove box for when I go there and I would go and I would bring my journal and I would write letters to John while I was at his cemetery plot. And it was just a way for me to, you know, keep open conversation with him and still be able to talk to him.

I wasn't at a point in the early stages where I felt comfortable talking out loud. I know that is how some people cope, but that wasn't for me. It felt weird. So it was better to write it for me. And then I also, the second way is that I would write lists. So every day I would write a list of the good things from my day and the bad things from my day.

And then sometimes I would jot down like a little other notes of anything else that I wanted to talk about. And I would force myself to write good things, even though it felt like there were no good things. And that eventually became like a reflection practice because I could look back in my journal and see that in the beginning, I maybe had one or two good things on my list.

And then going forward, I might've had 10 good things on my good list and two good, two things on my bad list. So I could see the progression and how it happened. And even though it maybe didn't feel that way, there was, Physical proof in that journal that things had gotten at least a little bit better.

So now that is how I design my journals as well. I do have a grief journal called letters to my loved one, which is to write letters to your person who's passed. And then a lot of my other journals have an inside design that has a good column, a bad column and an other column so that each day you can reflect on your day.

Practice a little gratitude. Also get out some of that negativity. And have that reflection process there for you as well. That definitely helped me. I didn't think that journaling was gonna be something, I thought it was just another tool that people were giving me, that I was gonna be like, yeah, yeah, okay, that's gonna help me.

But it really did. And I tell everyone to journal now, like, if you're stuck in your feelings, or if you are just blank and don't know what you're feeling, there's something about the process of putting a pen to paper that helps you work things out, rather than just trying to think about it in your head.

[00:11:54] Emily: Yeah, that's so true. And I was thinking of the word gratitude when you were talking about all of the good things. And it's really interesting what it does to our brain when we enter a mindset of gratitude or reflecting on the positive where we can't be angry. We can't be bitter if we're fully entering into that gratitude mindset.

And while it isn't one solution to solve for grief, it's a great way to. Take the time to really document positive things or good things that you can see even when your days are really dark and you're just finding one thing like I'm still breathing today to help you move forward and to give you, like you said, a way of looking back at over the past few months, over the past year or two years, how far you've really come when maybe in the middle of it, you don't feel like you've gotten very far.

[00:12:53] Shawn: Yeah, absolutely. The reflection is huge. And I think it's tough to because grief has a lot of balancing of feelings. So I like to tell people that grief and joy can coexist, even though we don't always feel like that's the case. Like society and our brains want to tell us that we shouldn't be happy and that we should feel bad if we feel happy.

And that's not the case at all. And especially when I go on trips and go on vacation and do anything that I feel like I'm so lucky and grateful to be doing, there's always that tinge of sadness from the grief that my person isn't there with me. So it's just a constant balancing act. And sometimes the journaling just helps you work through that, or at least gets it out of your body and your brain and gives it a physical place to live on a page rather than storing it all inside.

[00:13:46] Emily: Yeah I totally agree. And I know for me personally and some other widows that I work with, I'm really good at identifying, others emotions, others feelings, I can spot trends of what's happening with other people. I'm not so great at reflecting on myself and figuring out, how I'm truly feeling about something, what my thoughts are, why those things are coming up, and journaling is such a great way.

To do that and to give you a history of how that's really changed over time. How do you think that, journaling and going through therapy and joining that Widows group, what do you think it gave you that helped you find hope that there could be life again, or that you could have a life that you actually like doing in the future?

[00:14:37] Shawn: So like I said in the beginning, I knew immediately that I needed to find help and I think I was just like spiraling trying to stuff every tool possible into my toolbox. And I was just looking for a cure. I thought I was going to come across something that was gonna just fix my pain and my sadness.

Some people turn to yoga and that becomes their thing. And you think okay, they found this. They're better now. And that's not the case. So I found all these tools and now instead of just having this focus on getting one that cures me, I know that I have them to use in different situations and for different reasons.

And connecting with my groups, I've connected with A company called Grief Hab run by a woman, Samantha Ruth. She did a retreat that was completely like life changing for me. It was really self focused, which I wasn't used to. A lot of groups like to start out by hashing out your story and just a constant retelling of what happened to you.

And this was more like how we're going to heal from this. So I learned about, we did sound baths and sound healing. I've learned about somatic. Therapy, which I didn't even know existed and that you can use that and it's more beneficial to some people than like a traditional talk therapy. So I've just become, I think, really more aware of.

My feelings and what I need when I'm feeling them and also that I need to give myself the grace and the room to feel them when they come. So I know a lot of us that have experienced loss, we get this like anticipatory, Grief if something big is happening. So if a birthday is coming or a landmark date or Christmas or whatever it might be the anticipation of that is usually for me always worse than the actual day Like I end up worrying myself so much getting myself all worked up and then that day comes and i'm like, all right That wasn't so bad.

What did I just waste all this time worrying for? So now I really make it a point to set aside time and I say I call it to make myself sad but I will set aside time like If it's Thanksgiving, I will go the day before in the morning and go to John's Cemetery and sit there and be sad and cry and know that that's my time to do that and not have to worry so much about it being spontaneous and in the middle of dinner.

Even though that might still happen, it kind of like mitigates that almost. So I use my tools to, to work through my feelings in a different way than I ever did before. I used to just try to process everything on my own and now I have different outlets for different things and even different people for different things.

If I'm feeling a certain way, sometimes I might go to my mom, sometimes I might go to my best friend, sometimes I might go to a professional. I have a better awareness of where I need to go for what I'm feeling now, and that's all because of this toolkit that I've built for myself throughout this process.

[00:17:27] Emily: I love that. And I love how just self aware you are and how empowered you feel that you're not just a victim, you're not just a consequence of things that have happened to you, but you have the ability to do the work. You have the ability to take those baby steps forward and to actually make a change in your life.

Creating Heartstrings Journals
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[00:17:51] Emily: So share with us, as you were thinking of creating these journals for other people, or you were thinking about how it might help other people, what really came to mind for you, or what inspired you to want to do that?

[00:18:05] Shawn: So I did it because that's what that's how I was journaling. I ended up not wanting to write out that like good bad format every day.

So I designed a journal for myself and printed it. And then I ended up having people see it and they were kind of like, where did you get that? Are you going to make those? Are you going to sell those? And that wasn't the original plan, but it became the plan once I found out people liked them and wanted them.

And it's kind of spiraled out from since there are from there. But I also try to make it fun. I call them like a little bit unhinged. There's a level of unhinged for everyone, so you can have one that's okay for kids and then you can have one like the, I call it the sweary collection that has like swears and little like risque covers.

But I try, like mental health is something that we all struggle with and it doesn't need to be this dark, scary, hush, hush, chill. So I think by making these journals with these fun, inviting covers that make you laugh, people come up to my tables at vendor events and they're like, that one's for so and so, that one's for my sister.

At Christmas, the husbands will come up and they're like, this is either going to go over really well with my wife, or it's not going to go over well at all. And it's just, it makes it easy and accessible. And I think that's what I like to be able to provide for people and even the grief journals, they're not necessarily such like a lighthearted, fun thing.

Cause I think grief of grief journal does have to have a serious note to it. But it opens up conversation. And even if it's just me that they're talking to when they buy them at the table, they now know that they have someone that they can talk to or they can go to my social media and maybe see a video I posted and be like, Oh yeah, I relate to that.

And so I just want to be that open communication line almost for people that don't have it and let them know that those things are out there. And you shouldn't have to struggle so hard to find them. I feel like I searched the internet and I searched like the depths of Facebook groups and Reddit and all these things.

And I wish that there was just some easy guide. And so I try to. Show people, point them in the right direction of where they can go for certain things. I'll provide resources on my links on my social media. And I just like to talk and share my story because it makes someone else feel less alone.

[00:20:22] Emily: Yeah, I think that's so important.

Just letting other people know that they're not alone. And, even with people that are grieving, sometimes we get into the whole dark humor situation. But. Laughter can be a release, comedy can be a release, and just being very real. Resonates with other people, society wants us to be strong.

They want us to grieve in private. They want us to get over it. And we know the reality is that just doesn't happen. So I think it's just so cool that you created something not only for yourself, but you saw a need that could help you and other people. And you didn't just stop with yourself. You created something that can have a lasting impact for people for years to come.

Embracing a Positive Mindset
---

[00:21:09] Shawn: Yeah, and I just try to be an open book. I know a lot of people that have dealt with loss from overdose or maybe suicide are things that are more stigmatized. It's harder to talk about because of all the judgment that comes along with it. But I try to see it as this happened to me. I didn't make this happen in any way.

I didn't influence this. I wasn't like, sitting next to him doing drugs. That might be the case in some people's story, but for me, it wasn't from the outside. We lived a very typical, normal white picket fence kind of life. And I just, I don't want people to think that they have to care so much about the judgment for the most part.

You're never going to see that person again. If you're talking out in public, if someone's sitting next to you and hears your conversation, you'll never see them again. So their judgment doesn't matter. And it's a lot easier said than done. I know that I like to focus a lot on positive mindset and it's something that has to be practiced and worked on.

It's not something that comes easy. I think when people hear me talk, sometimes they think it just comes naturally to me. But it's something I consciously work on and shift my mindset from thinking about things negatively until to trying to spin it into a positive light or into something that's going to be like, not a burden to me.

And. Our brains like to work against us a lot of the time and tell us not to do certain things. But I believe you do the scary thing. You don't always need to listen to your brain if something seems like it might not be right. Different than intuition, I think, just don't hold yourself back so much because of worrying about judgment of others.

Again, that's, Coming strictly like from John's personality straight into me now. So I think that part of him is really ingrained in me now. He just didn't care about anything almost to the point of annoyance sometimes where I was like, I just want to complain today. And he was like, but they were just doing this and he would brush it off.

But I'm still the same now. And I'm thankful for him for being like that and forgiving that piece of him, piece of himself to me.

[00:23:20] Emily: What a great gift, right? Just the influence where it inspired you as you were recreating yourself, as you're rebuilding yourself, things that you want to incorporate in how you are and how you think, and really how you view the world.

And I think it's such a great tribute to him and his memory that you incorporated some of those things.

[00:23:43] Shawn: Yeah, and I used to get almost decision fatigue, like, where I would go back and forth about things for so long, just trying to figure out what was right, and I couldn't just make a spontaneous decision, and he was a very spontaneous decision person.

When I was just in Portugal, I went and got a tattoo. And I didn't even think about it. I was just like, I'm going to go do this. It has meaning to me, even if it comes out kind of crappy, which it didn't at all. I love it. Like what's the worst that can happen? Everything to me now is like, what's the worst that can happen?

Because nothing is comparable to the worst that already has happened. So it gives me this new freedom that things just aren't as scary as they were before.

[00:24:27] Emily: Yeah, you've already had one of the greatest traumas happen to you that, that could happen. So that's a great way to look at that.

Connecting with Shawn
---

[00:24:36] Emily: Share with the audience where they can find you to connect with you, where they can find, your journals, if they're interested in looking, checking those out and picking one of those up where's the best way to find you?

[00:24:48] Shawn: So the easiest way to find everything is going to be on Instagram. It's heart underscore strings journals. From there, I have a link tree link that has my Amazon shop, all my other social media. Other podcasts or interviews that I've done, grief resources if you want to go straight to Amazon, you can search Heartstrings Journals or my name, Shawn Dineen, and they should come up there as well.

And then all my other social media really is Heartstrings Journals. So it should be pretty easy to find me, but I would start with Instagram if you want to start somewhere.

[00:25:18] Emily: Awesome. And for everyone who's on the go or driving and you're listening, we'll make sure that all of Shawn's links are in the show notes.

So you can go back and find those to check those out. And Shawn thank you so much for coming on today and sharing your story. I really appreciate it. Yes.

[00:25:37] Shawn: Thank you so much for having

[00:25:38] Emily: me.

Conclusion and Membership Invitation
---

[00:25:38] Emily: Are you a widow who feels disconnected? Do you feel like you're stuck or even going backwards in your grief? Widowhood can be lonely and isolating, but it doesn't have to be. Join us in the Brave Widow membership community and connect. We teach widows how to find hope, heal their heart, and dream again for the future.

Find your purpose and create a life you love today. Go to bravewidow. com to get started.